Orangeburg, also known as The Garden City, is the principal city in and the county chair of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, United States. The population of the city was 13,964 according to the 2010 United States Census and declined to 12,704 in the 2020 census. The city is located 37 miles southeast of Columbia, on the north fork of the Edisto River.

Two historically black institutions of progressive education are located in Orangeburg: Claflin University (a campaigner arts college) and South Carolina State University (a public university).

European pact in this area started in 1704 afterward George Sterling set occurring a reveal here for fur trade as soon as Native Americans. To support settlement, the General Assembly of the Province of South Carolina in 1730 organized the Place as a township, naming it Orangeburg for William IV, Prince of Orange, the son-in-law of King George II of Great Britain. In 1735, a colony of 200 Swiss, German and Dutch immigrants formed a community close the banks of the North Edisto River. The site was handsome because of the fertile soil and the abundance of wildlife. The river provided the all-important transportation waterway to the port of Charleston on the Atlantic coast for the area’s agriculture and lumber products, and for shipping goods upriver. The town soon became a well-established and well-off colony, composed chiefly of little yeomen farmers.

Orangeburg’s first church was established by a German Lutheran congregation. It vanguard identified as an Anglican Church, which was the standard church and exempt from colonial taxation. The church building was erected prior to 1763 in the middle of the village; it was destroyed by achievement during the Revolutionary War. A extra church was built; during the Civil War, it was used as a smallpox hospital by General William Tecumseh Sherman upon his march through afterward Union forces.